VisuWords

Visuwords is an exciting new site which lets users create their own type of graphical dictionary. The way this works is very wiki-esque, you browse for a term, if it is not there it puts the term on a blank page. From there you can edit your term and link them to others, similar to how you would be creating a concept map in Inspiration.

While I think this is a nice tool there still are a lot of terms not listed. I suggest giving it a try as it is very user friendly. A bonus for some will be the ability to download the source code (Unix).

Here are the results from browsing the term "technology". Each color and line represents a specific type of "relationship".



Give it a try by clicking here.

For another in depth review check out the always resourceful Free Technology 4 Teachers blog.

Lexipedia

Lexipedia is a new (beta) site that is great for visualizing words. It does this by displaying your words in a concept map w/ a "legend/key" that displays the type of words they are. I would compare it to Vocab Grabber's visual thesaurus in that respect.

For example, I looked up "technology integration" and from the pic below you'll see the concept map that was displayed. Also, on that page you'll see a "legend" that will display if the word is a: verb, noun, adjective, etc. and then list the definitions.


Give it a try by clicking here.

VocabGrabber

VocabGrabber is a new site from the creators of Visual Thesaurus. I first heard of VG from Larry Ferlazzo, and then was greeted w/ a very nice email (from them) regarding it's tremendous use in education.

According to their press release VocabGrabber is a tool "that helps teachers and students target the key vocabulary from a text within seconds." It actually is very similar to Word Sift w/ a lot more features.

VG is very easy to use. As w/ Word Sift, just copy/paste text and click grab vocabulary. The words in your text will be sorted/filtered; while the most relevant vocab words will appear in a nice tag cloud w/ a bar graphing breaking down subject relevance.



Another great feature is the visual concept map that is located to the right of the "tag cloud". This graphic is linked to the Visual Thesaurus which is another interesting experience in it's own right. From there you can view your words, see how they are linked, and even have them read back to you via the play-back button. Definitely worth a look!!!



Give VocabGrabber a try by clicking here.

Word Sift

Word Sift is a site I first learned about from Jennifer Dorman's amazing blog. It is a site where visualizing text takes place, similar to Wordle.

WS is super easy to use. Just enter your text (copy/paste works great for long passages-up to 3 meg) and then click on sift. The words then scramble into a tag cloud emphasizing important words.

Also, after creating a visualization, Word Sift generates images that best represents your data.

Before pic



After pic



Create your own Word Visualization by clicking here.